The Times of Their Lives: Life, Love, and Death in the Plymouth Colony [Hardcover]

James Deetz (Author), Patricia Scott Deetz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 15, 2000

Who were the Pilgrims? Far from the somberly clad, stern, and righteous figures children learn about in school, many of the early settlers of Plymouth actually dressed in bright colors, drank heavily, and often got into trouble.

A surprising new look at America's founding fathers and mothers, The Times of Their Lives presents a realistic, factual account of the Plymouth colony based on contemporary archaeology, cultural research, and living history. Taking little known trial transcripts, personal accounts, wills and probate records, as well as physical artifacts such as shards and spoons unearthed from old foundations, James and Patricia Deetz reveal what life in seventeenth century Plymouth was really like. In the process they blow the dust off the dull, wooden figures of tradition and show the people of Plymouth as vibrant individuals who lived out complex and colorful lives in a world profoundly different than our own.

Beginning with an eyewitness account of the first Thanksgiving, The Times of Their Lives offers an often startling portrait of Plymouth Colony that includes aspects of the legal system, folk beliefs, family life, women’s roles and gender issues, eating habits, alcohol use, sexual misconduct, domestic violence, suspicious deaths, and violent crimes.

The result is an impeccably researched and highly imaginative work that shakes up our view of one of the most cherished myths of American history.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School-The authors demystify both the political realities and the daily social lives of the New England colonists popularly identified as "Pilgrims." Both casual readers and researchers are offered an engaging and edifying introduction to the actual ramifications of life in the early 17th-century colony. The Deetzes look at how order was maintained, relations with the native people, the roles and maintenance of law and punishment, gender relations, violence, death, and the habits of the hearth and home. While knocking down the mythologies that have taken root across the generations, the narrative supplies images that are just as lively and compelling. Sources are retained as notes at the back so that readers need not follow footnotes, yet have documentation close at hand.

Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Rejecting both the sacred myth of the Pilgrim fathers and the revisionist view of the rigidly repressed Puritans, the Deetzes present a radically different picture of the settlers who populated Plymouth Colony. To humanize their subjects within their historical context, the^B authors scrutinized a variety of primary sources, including court records, probate inventories, wills, archaeological artifacts, and first-person chronicles of life in the early settlement. Although vivid descriptions of folk customs, houses, and furnishings are provided, the detailed accounts of superstitions, sexual indiscretions, and criminal proceedings offer an especially fresh perspective on daily life in seventeenth-century America. Neither saints nor villains, the Plymouth colonists were very much a product of their unique social, political, and cultural environment. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: W. H. Freeman (September 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0716738309
• ISBN-13: 978-0716738305
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,642,150 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pilgrims' Progress, December 8, 2000

By 

R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Times of Their Lives: Life, Love, and Death in the Plymouth Colony (Hardcover)

_The Times of Their Lives: Life, Love, and Death in Plymouth Colony (W. H. Freeman) by James Deetz and Patricia Scott Deetz, takes the history we would like to believe about the Pilgrims and makes it the history that is history, not wishful thinking. Prepare to abandon cherished ideas: Pilgrims almost undoubtedly never set that first foot on Plymouth Rock. Pilgrims dressed in brightly colored clothes. They didn't live in log cabins. They didn't eat turkey for Thanksgiving. They shot guns off to celebrate that first harvest, but no one is on record of thanking anyone for anything on that day. The most frequent crimes for which they were tried were sexual ones, and premarital sex occurred at a shocking rate. The mythmakers of the nineteenth century found the supposedly pure Pilgrims more attractive than the rowdy, fortune-seeking crew at Jamestown, even though Jamestown preceded Plymouth.

The Times of Their Lives deals with the social history of the colony, but also examines how the historians and archeologists have been able to come to present conclusions, some greatly at odds with Pilgrim image. The book climaxes with a description of the changes at Plimoth Plantation, the recreation of the colony along the lines of something like Williamsburg. James Deetz was a director of the museum for eleven years, and took the radical position that visitors should be induced to believe that they had really entered the seventeenth century because nothing would be present that was not there at that time. This lively and fascinating book explains some of how the authenticity was confirmed and instilled in the museum. If we have to abandon some idealization of purity in our puritans, so much the better for a humane understanding of their history.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Work, But They Should've Done Even Better, January 22, 2007

By 

WhoooserDaddy "History Guy" (Glens Falls, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Times of Their Lives: Life, Love, and Death in the Plymouth Colony (Hardcover)

This book is a thorough piece of work - facts, dry text, colorful insights, dull academia, interesting human elements. It is a strange piece to review, as now that I have finished reading the book, I look back and can actually consider it to be a number of smaller works all contained within the save cover. With that in mind, I will comment on the "sections" individually as well as the work as a whole.

Archaeology: interesting subject matter for sure, the reader may well find themselves irresistibly drawn in to the discussions on the various referenced sites. However, the author in his/her attempt at describing orientations of items/foundations, etc., does a poor job. In many instances, a simple keyed diagram would have much more applicable and practical than long-winded and convoluted textual descriptions.

Lifestyles: flowing, page-turning descriptions of the subject matter at hand, be it the belief in the existence of witches, the settlement of estates, or the rules regarding fornication. Well done!

References to other work: must say that I was a bit disappointed with the occasional complete dependence on Demos' A Little Commonwealth.

Self-promotion: constant references by the authors to themselves in the 3rd person became annoying, carrying with it an unmistakable air of arrogance. And the disjointed and gratuitous "Postscript" written at the end of Chapter 6 by Patricia Scott Deetz that rambles on about her husband/co-author's many accomplishments was unnecessary and totally out of place.

Overall: A strange conglomeration of creative writing and storytelling ala Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick and drier Demos-style reliance and regurgitation of old probate records. In the end, I am happy to have read this work, and the experience was enjoyable overall. I can't help but feel, however, that the authors have sold themselves short and not fully-harnessed their collective knowledge of and love for the Plymouth Colony history.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Pilgrims through History, Myth and Archeology, February 14, 2002

By 

Ricky Hunter (New York City, NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Times of Their Lives: Life, Love, and Death in Plymouth Colony (Paperback)

James Deetz and Patricia Scott Deetz's The Times of Their Lives (Life, Love, and Death in Plymouth Colony) looks at the somewhat misnamed Pilgrims, including much recent archeological scholarship along with the usual documentary evidence upon which most historians exclusively rely. They show a great respect for the nineteenth century created myths surrounding the pilgrims while at the same time deconstructing them to present as realistic picture of this time as current research will allow. Along the way, they touch upon crime, sex, marriage, material culture, and food to give a full picture of the lives lived in Plymouth Colony, both British and Indian. The authors manage to make all of the archeological information quite palatable to the average reader. A nice read.